A Marketer’s Biography of India – India Unbound

There have been umpteen works about how India progressed in the later half of the twentieth century after she won her independence. The present work ‘India Unbound : From Independence to the Global Information Age’ is unique in the sense it is a marketer’s account of history. Gurucharan Das, a successful marketer who marketed Vicks Vaporub and helped millions of Indians respire easily is the man behind this book. This book is again a kind of ‘Vaporub’ in the sense that it gives succour and a lot of hope to Indian minds. The vantage point he occupied, especially during the heights of License-raj makes him uniquely endowed to present the story.

The book is more an economic critic of the state policies in the post-independence era. The author has brings out the complete failure of the Fabian Socialistic recipes. In a decisive manner he has showed how the socialistic leanings of the early leaders have failed the people of the country. The hope and enthusiasm in the aftermaths of the independence did not last for too long because the people quickly understood that 15^th August of 1947 only won them political freedom while social and economic freedom were a far cry.

The author quiet rightly points out that Nehru’s economic policies were nothing but the reflection of the collected wisdom of his times. The author could have added more on why Nehru failed us on the economic front. Nehru was more an ideologist than a politician. He always exacted strict adherence to his principles. More importantly he retained the foreign affairs portfolio with him. Consequently he became too much pre-occupied with international affairs. He spent too much time in refuting western world calling India a backward country than in doing constructive work in actually lifting the nation out of its backwardness. The chapter on the contributions of Lal Bahadur Shastri is an interesting one. Author succinctly pointed out that the eighteen month rule of Shastri was more effective than eighteen year rule of Nehru. The author again rightly partitions the blame when he makes Mrs.Gandhi responsible for the economic state of affairs that we found ourselves in the 1980’s.

Can there be anything inherently wrong with the philosophy of Socialism per se? The author answers this question in a detailed fashion throughout the book. There have been examples of countries that have excelled with socialism. The Soviet Russia hastened economic development with the socialistic recipes like that of centralized planning. So where have we gone wrong? It is in the implementation of the schemes. The author strikes a chord with most of his readers when he comments that no institution failed the people of this country more than the bureaucracy of the state. Instead of being the growth drivers of the nation, they suffered perennially from administrative myopia. They thought local and acted narrowly. The License-raj ushered in the era of Inspector-raj. The tribe of inspectors occupied an important position in the economic hierarchy of the nation continuously asphyxiating the business organization specially the smaller and middle-sized ones.

Mixed Economy is another toy of our socialistic leaders which thoroughly failed us. Mixed economy is jocularly called the mixed-up economy. Author is pretty critical when he describes his own experiences with the bureaucracy when he wanted to introduce a new product sometimes in the 1980’s. The socialistic leaning of the Congress went to such a level that they hated the mere mention of the word ‘profit’. They engendered all sorts of legislative devils like that of the MRTP Act and the FERA to wipe out the endangered species of entrepreneurial Indians and their spirits. Infact the author makes the reader to wonder how really private businesses existed under such a depressing administrative framework.

The psychoanalyst in the author comes out magnificently when he makes some of the most interesting analysis of the personalities of individuals, families, people and cities. The attempt to explain the personality of Mrs. Gandhi was quiet imaginative but he contradicts his own characterization of the lady as a bold curt independent leader.

The author has done an excellent job in presenting short biographies of important business leaders of the past century. Be it the chapters on Aditya Birla or Dhirubhai Ambani the author has showcased their rise in a balanced manner. The way these entrepreneurs fought against the license-raj and conquered the market as well as the state is an interesting read. There are umpteen lessons buried in these accounts which the budding entrepreneurs can catch hold of.

The third part of the book that deals with the economic reforms is the most absorbing section. The dramatic presentation of events makes the section even more interesting. The author rightly pointed out Narasimha Rao as the real person behind the 1991 reforms. Several new things happened during 1991. The Congress Government that was installed as a minority government. No one expected it to last its full-term let alone changing the economic landscape of the nation. Rao set-off the whole process of reform from the moment he chose Manmohan Singh – a professional economist as his man to head the Finance ministry. The Rao-Singh duo set out to change the course of Indian economic history when they decided to dump the decades-old state control of the economy in favour of market-control.

The author could have done well to show the role of external forces in this transitional process. Starting with the abolition of License -Raj, exchange-rate management regime, de-reserving industries, de-canalising imports, delinking the interest rates so many things happened one after the other. Over a few months the economic landscape of the country looked completely different. The new enthusiasm that became evident then was akin to something that prevailed in the aftermaths of the independence. The 1991 economic reforms gave a decent burial to the mixed economy philosophy initiated by Nehru.

The author has done a good job in describing how successful the Congress leaders were in initiating the reforms. It becomes even more important in understanding how difficult it would be for someone to backtrack the steps taken without self-contradiction. The author rightly credits the ‘reluctant reformer’ Rao for delivering market-based economy in India. The reality of politics did not allow the reformer to stay intact for long. The best of the reformers in Rao and Singh couldn’t withstand the political temptation that votes lie in populist demands. The bold reformers started losing confidence when they tried to identify with Nehru-Gandhi legacy and tried to establish a sense of continuity. Further they failed to realize that the job done by them was indeed a miracle. This led them to distance themselves from their magnum opus and led to the massive defeat in the 1996 general elections.

Author has done an excellent job in this book. In short this book can be summed up as an excellent source of inspiration as well as information for all those budding Indians who are eager to see India as great nation in the twenty-first century. India was a great nation in the past. It is time for us to restore India back to her rightful position in the global arena. Author should be appreciated for coming up with this work.

Note : This review was originally published in Management Matters - LIBA's Official Magazine (September 2008 - February 2009 issue). The review is reproduced above with due permission of the magazine's editor.